Pages: << 1 ... 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 ... 1326 >>
POPE ENDORSES "WORLD POLITICAL AUTHORITY"
Cliff Kincaid
Some in the media are calling it just a statement about “economic justice.” But Pope Benedict XVI’s “Charity in Truth” statement, also known as an encyclical, is a radical document that puts the Roman Catholic Church firmly on the side of an emerging world government.
In explicit and direct language, the Pope calls for a “true world political authority” to manage the affairs of the world. At the same time, however, the Pope also warns that such an international order could “produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature” and must be guarded against somehow.
The New York Times got it right this time, noting the Pope’s call for a world political authority amounted to endorsement of a New World Economic Order, a long-time goal of the old Soviet-sponsored international communist movement. Bloomberg.com highlighted the Pope’s call for a new world order with “teeth.”
Real ID: A Real Warning on the Danger of Government
James Bovard
There was no reason to pass Real ID, and there is no reason to enact a replacement after state legislatures shot REAL ID to pieces. Nothing has happened since 2005 to make the government more trustworthy or to make liberty less valuable.
The REAL ID Act may be on the verge of receiving its final coffin nails. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is pushing a replacement bill that poses many of the same threats as REAL ID. The history of REAL ID should inspire friends of freedom to once again vigorously oppose any and every federal grab for their personal information.
The feds had sought legislation to create national ID cards in the 1990s but were rebuffed by a Republican Congress. But, after 9/11, “everything changed” — at least in Washington. Regardless of the reasons why the CIA and FBI failed to stop the hijackers, the solution was far more snooping and the potential creation of hundreds of millions of dossiers on American citizens. Almost overnight, it became widely accepted that the government must have unlimited powers to search anywhere and everywhere for enemies of freedom. The worse the government’s failure to protect Americans, the further it permitted itself to intrude.
If Paulson's a national hero, I'm Batman
Matt Taibbi
“Hank Paulson is a national hero. I said it last October and I’m sticking by it. And now, there’s actual evidence to back me up. The TARP bailout worked. The Wall Street crisis is over.” -Evan Newmark, It’s Time to Enshrine Hank Paulson as National Hero
If anyone besides Paulson had been running Goldman Sachs earlier in this decade — if a person with a serious brain injury had been in his place, for instance, or a horse, or a head of lettuce — we’d all be better off today, because there wouldn’t be so many toxic Goldman-underwritten mortgage-backed CDOs on the market.
So here’s the letter I wrote to the Wall Street Journal after reading Evan Newmark’s paean to Hank Paulson last week:
McNamara’s Evil Lives On
Robert Scheer
Why not speak ill of the dead?
Robert McNamara, who died this week, was a complex man—charming even, in a blustery way, and someone I found quite thoughtful when I interviewed him. In the third act of his life he was often an advocate for enlightened positions on world poverty and the dangers of the nuclear arms race. But whatever his better nature, it was the stark evil he perpetrated as secretary of defense that must indelibly frame our memory of him.
To not speak out fully because of respect for the deceased would be to mock the memory of the millions of innocent people McNamara caused to be maimed and killed in a war that he later freely admitted never made any sense. Much has been made of the fact that he recanted his support for the war, but that came 20 years after the holocaust he visited upon Vietnam was over.
Israel calls on Jewish fanatics to “save” Galilee from its own Arab citizens
Jonathan Cook
Israel’s housing minister has called for strict segregation between the country’s Jewish and Arab populations last week as he unveiled plans to move large numbers of fundamentalist religious Jews to Israel’s north to prevent what he described as an “Arab takeover” of the region.
Ariel Atias said he considered it a “national mission” to bring ultra-Orthodox Jews – or Haredim, distinctive for their formal black and white clothing – into Arab areas, and announced that he would also create the north’s first exclusively Haredi town.
The new settlement drive, according to Mr Atias, is intended to revive previous failed efforts by the state to “Judaise”, or create a Jewish majority in, the country’s heavily Arab north.
Why Jerusalem? -- Israel’s hidden agenda
Dan Lieberman
Three huge granite stones rest comfortably on the top of Midbar Sinai Street, in Givat Havatzim, Jerusalem’s northernmost district. Cut to specification, the imposing stones represent one of several preparations by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement’s to erect a Third Temple on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount.
Since the Islamic Wafq owns and controls all the property on the Haram al-Sharif, by what means can these stones be transferred to the Temple Mount and how can a temple be constructed there? Not by any legal means. The stones are a provocation, which the Israel government refuses to halt. Neglect and passivity lead to a belief that an eventual Muslim reaction to the increasing provocations will give Israel an excuse to seize total control of the Holy Basin -- the ultimate of the properties that Israel intends to incorporate into a greater Jerusalem.
Neutralizing a Nation
Joharah Baker
It is not always about overt political displays when it comes to what defines our conflict with the Israelis. It is easy to become wrapped up in the grandiose issues such as borders, settlements, the separation wall, refugees, Jerusalem, water and so on and so forth. After all, these are the disputes that must ultimately be resolved in order for this conflict to end justly and permanently. But let us put such matters aside for the purpose of this article. There is an underlying, extremely insidious and equally effective rationale that Israel uses in regards to the Palestinians of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem that is a sort of preparation, a way of setting the stage for the imposition of their own terms regarding the abovementioned issues.
As much as this conflict is about the political dimensions everyone knows all too well, it is also about the forced transformation of the Palestinians from a revolutionary, resisting people to a nation that must submit to Israel's dictates in order to survive. Basically, because the Palestinians live under Israeli military rule, it is Israel that ultimately calls the shots, not only on the bigger issues but on aspects of everyday life.
You Betcha Sarah Palin Has a Higher Calling
by Walter Brasch
Sarah Palin said she had a "higher calling" that required her to resign 17 months before her term ended as governor of Alaska, and not to seek a second term.
I have no idea where this "higher calling" came from, but I suspect it could only have come from two sources. The first one is God. I don't know what God said to Sarah Palin, but I suspect it might have been something like this:
"Sarah. I am a patient God. But, you have tried my patience. You are an embarrassment to my ideals, to yourself, to the people of your state, and to your country. Me, and my wolves and moose, would like you to please resign and devote the rest of your life in spiritual embrace of a better life. Oh, by the way, I knew a Sarah, and you are no Sarah."
The other possibility of her "higher calling" is from the Sultan of Greed. I also haven't talked to him about Sarah Palin's "Higher Calling," but this is a possibility of that conversation:
Forget the Headlines: Iraqi Freedom Deferred
By Ramzy Baroud
As US combat troops redeployed to the outskirts of Iraqi cities on June 30, well-staged celebrations commenced. The pro-US Iraqi government declared “independence day” as police vehicles roamed the streets of war-weary Iraq in an unpersuasive show of national rejoicing. US mainstream media joined the chorus, as if commemorating the end of an era.
Meanwhile, top US administration and army officials cautioned Iraqis of their own recklessness. “Biden Warns Iraq About Reverting to Sectarian Violence,” read a New York Times headline. “What will it take to make a good exit from Iraq?” inquired a Kansas City Star analysis. But missing from news headlines and commentary was any indication of direct US responsibility for the genocide that has befallen Iraq.
Never mind the waterboarding, here's the sodomy
Allan Uthman
"Yasser tearfully described that when he reached the top of the steps 'the party began…They started to put the [muzzle] of the rifle [and] the wood from the broom into [my anus]. They entered my privates from behind.' ...Yasser estimated that he was penetrated five or six times during this initial sodomy incident and saw blood 'all over my feet' through a small hole in the hood covering his eyes." –Physicians for Human Rights, Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact.
Waterboarding. It’s all we seem to discuss when comes to American torture. Whenever you see people discussing “enhanced interrogation” on your TV, chances are they’ll be throwing around the same tired arguments, all revoling around waterboarding. Why, of all the things we’ve done to our suspected (and not-so-suspected) terrorist detainees, is waterboarding the issue? Why confine the rapidly dwindling debate to that single technique? We’ve engaged in a lot of other practices that qualify universally as torture. Are sleep deprivation or “Palestinian hanging” not controversial enough? Is solitary confinement too mundane?
<< 1 ... 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 ... 1326 >>
